Story file
Spread Transparency, 2026 Edition
More brokers than ever publish average spreads and commission schedules side by side. The number that matters is still the one nobody prints: the all-in cost, in pips.
Credit where the ledger says it is due: broker cost disclosure is better than it used to be. As of this writing it is common for a broker to publish an average-spread table by instrument, a commission schedule by account type and platform, and swap rates on request. The raw material for an honest comparison is mostly on the table. What remains rare — the desk has yet to file an exception — is a broker that adds its own two lines together and prints the total.
So the total remains the reader’s homework, and the homework is short. One standard lot of EUR/USD is 100,000 euros, and one pip on it is worth about ten US dollars. A commission of $3.50 per side — a common published figure on raw-pricing accounts — is $7.00 per round turn, which is 0.7 pips. That is the whole trick: commission divided by pip value equals commission in pips, and commission in pips can be added to spread. A raw account advertising “spreads from 0.0” with a published average of 0.1 pips is an all-in 0.8. A spread-only account with a published average of 1.0 needs no conversion at all — and suddenly the gap between “raw” and “standard” is a few tenths of a pip, not the chasm the landing page implies.
Two habits of disclosure deserve a red pen while we are here. First, “from 0.0 pips” is a floor, not an average; a floor is the least informative statistic a distribution can produce, and it is invariably the one in 72-point type. Second, averages are usually quoted for liquid hours; the same instrument off-hours or through a news release is a different market, and the published table rarely says which one you will be trading in.
What would full marks look like? Time-weighted average spreads by session, stated plainly. Round-turn commission published in both account currency and pips per standard lot. Swap schedules on the same page, not behind a login. And one printed number per instrument per account type: the all-in cost, summed by the broker rather than the customer. The trend is moving the right way, as of this writing; no broker the desk reads has yet printed the sum. Until one does, the auditor’s rule stands: convert, add, and only then compare.
A line the bulletin repeats without apology: trading on margin involves substantial risk of loss, and nothing here is financial advice.